Research Article

The role of community energy in renewable energy use and development

Department of Economics, Takasaki City University of Economics, Takasaki 370-0801, Japan

^⁎ e-mail: ysyama@tcue.ac.jp

Abstract

As a number of researchers have observed, local communities play an important role in facilitating decentralized renewable energy (RE). Based on a literature review, this study identifies viewpoints with implications for community energy organization models that merit further investigation. First, the study identifies key features of community energy—economic and financial advantages, and community autonomy and sustainability—in the research literature. In regard to these features, the study then presents four viewpoints with implications for community energy: economic efficiency, common pool resource management, social networking, and social system context. Further research from these viewpoints will provide a better understanding of community energy and the development of RE.